A Fan's Notes Frederick Exley

Here's a book I loved. Heard a lot of bad things about it before I sought out a copy; most everyone said that the narrator was a lout, and that the book was unpleasant. One guy I read on-line said that he felt dirty for having read it, and it was a book he wishes he could un-read. First heard of him from EDO, and the song "Frederick Exley": "It was the winter of my upset, I was so depressed/I wanted to jump off a bridge and end it all/Then I read your horrible little book I was so relieved/I knew had a long way down to go"

I don't get it at all. Sure, Fred Exley may be perpetually drunk and quite often irresponsible, but I don't think he's necessarily a bad person. Particularly when compared to another novel I read from the same era, John Updike's RABBIT, RUN: Harry Angstrom, now that guy's nothing but a prick. Where Updike was trying to invoke some of the restive complacency of the 1950's and 60's, Exley was out railing against it. This cost him more than a few jobs (public relations, school teacher, and a brief stint as aluminum siding salesman), led him back home to his parents' house in upstate New York for an extended stay, and landed him in a mental hospital (twice). But he's no Holden Caulfield: sure, I loved CATCHER IN THE RYE, but there's something about J.D. Salinger that's fairly superficial and, dare I say it, immature. I just read FRANNY AND ZOOEY last year, and just about hated it. I think, like Updike, Salinger tries to get at suburban angst via exhaustion, sending his characters through the paces of vapid dialogue and empty situations, to give them something to do while you as the reader get frustrated with the meaningless of it all. You can call it a character study, but at least as I read it, you're not going to like the character much if they don't get frustrated themselves.

Which is why I like Ex. He's an observer of humanity, like Ishmael or Huck Finn, in the classic tradition, always commenting on the situation he's in, but he's no hero, even in his own life. When, frequently, he finds himself doing or saying something reprehensible, he shares his thinking and motivation, tinged with a realization of how terrible he can be, but without any sort of remorse or apology. Confession, without guilt: like someone getting up at an AA meeting and telling all, but without the mea culpa. This makes him all the more human. Perhaps the best example of this, which I can easily envision as a scene in a movie, is when he gets out of the mental hospital in New York, and contacts the family of a fellow patient, about to be released, who doesn't have anywhere to go. From a payphone in Grand Central Station, he calls the man's sister and her domineering husband, and quickly realizes that they won't take him in. Whatever their history or family situation, Ex is struck by their callous disregard for a family member who needs help. He has something of a meltdown on the phone, and whether he's correctly admonishing them for their indifference or exorcising his own demons isn't clear--just like in most cases where you overhear someone going off like this. The kind of poignancy this lends to such a confrontation makes the book a real winner. But challenging, and far from perfect. That's Frederick Exley for you.